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Demands Israel Has Accepted, And Rejected

IMEMC & Agencies | August 8, 2014

The following is a list of Palestinian demands presented to Israel by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, during indirect talks held in Egypt between Israeli and Palestinians teams, as published by al-Watan News :

1. Israel totally rejects establishing either a Seaport or an Airport in the Gaza Strip.

2. Totally rejects the release of all detainees who were released under the Shalit Prisoner Swap Deal, and rearrested by Israel.

3. Israel “reserves the right” to act against the tunnels in Gaza.

4. Israel “reserves the right” to conduct targeted killings.

5. Agrees to consider the Rafah Border Terminal as an Egyptian-Palestinian issue.

6. Agrees to release the fourth phase of veteran detainees “as a goodwill gesture toward president Mahmoud Abbas.”

7. Agrees to extend the Palestinian fishing zone in Gaza territorial waters.

8. Agrees to allow the transfer of money for paying salaries in the Gaza Strip.

9. Agrees to ease restrictions on Palestinians crossing the Erez terminal, will not relax restrictions on goods.

10. Agrees to the entry of construction equipment, but only under international supervision.

Just before the 72-hour ceasefire ended on Friday morning, Israeli sources said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the army to remain ready for any possible escalation.

When the period came to an end the resistance fired a missile into the Nahal ‘Oz military base, across the border and the army bombarded several areas in the Gaza Strip.

Armed groups also fired shells into Asqalan (Ashkelon) and a number of areas.

August 8, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Zionist Lies

By Raji Abuzalaf | Dissident Voice | August 7, 2014

“There is no such thing as Palestine”

• I am Palestinian. My ancestors have lived in Palestine and were called “Palestinians” for 100 generations. I still have my parents’ Palestine passports.

• Before history is completely rewritten by Zionists, research plainly shows that the land has been called “Palestine” and her inhabitants “Palestinians” since 500 BCE.

• The United Nations partitioned “original Palestine” into two states: Israel (55%) and Palestine (45%) – (U.N. Resolution 181 – 11/29/1947).

Conclusion: Palestine has existed (by that name) for over 2500 years. Although the Zionist state of Israel was illegitimately formed on 78% of the land (which was conveniently overlooked by the U.N.), the remaining 22% is internationally recognized as Palestine. There are millions of Palestinians living in the world:

• In Palestine (living in terror under illegal Israeli occupation)

• In Israel (living as 3rd class citizens)

• In neighboring Arab countries, Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

“Israel has the right to defend itself”

In theory, everyone has the right to self-defense. However, this right is forfeited when the party claiming that right is in the midst of an illegal or immoral act.

Example: If a criminal breaks into a home and lays siege upon it, the homeowner has the right to dispel the intruder – and in turn, any violence used by the criminal to repel the homeowner’s resistance can never be misconstrued as “self-defense” (although that ruse has been attempted many times by criminals in American courtrooms).

Fact: In 1967, Israel attacked the Palestinian Territories and began its military occupation. Both the attack and ensuing occupation were immediately condemned by the United Nations (U.N.S.C. Resolution 242 – 11/22/1967). Despite that and numerous subsequent resolutions, Israel has imposed military rule upon the Palestinians and has perpetrated a long list of crimes against humanity (also condemned by the U.N.):

• Attacks on neighboring Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq

• The prevention of medical and food supplies to Palestinians

• The control of water sources in Palestine

• The building of illegal settlements in Palestine – Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem

• The population of these settlements with illegal settlers – armed thugs

• The bulldozing of Palestinian homes killing people in them (or in front of them, e.g., Rachel Corrie)

• The building of the “Apartheid Wall” separating Palestinians from their families, farmlands, water sources, and medical facilities

• Collaboration with Apartheid South Africa to develop non-sanctioned nuclear weapons, along with biological and chemical weapons

• Establishment of “Administrative Detention” which subjects Palestinians – including women and children – to arrest and detention without charges, legal representation, or due process

• Attacks, arrests, and murders of international humanitarians offering assistance to Palestinians

Conclusion: Israel is in violation of a plethora of international and moral laws. Its presence in Palestine amounts to no less than illegal entry, robbery, destruction of property, assault, and murder. Since the international community has failed to enforce international law with regards to Israel’s war crimes, the Palestinians are justified in any attempt to rid themselves of their oppressor – Israel. Any devious attempt on Israel’s part to mislabel its heinous acts as “self-defense” is completely unwarranted and downright deceptive.

“Hamas is to blame! Hamas should stop bombing Israel”

Again – this is the case of the criminal pointing the finger at the victim. Israel’s brutal presence in Palestine is in violation of numerous international and moral laws. The acts of Hamas are akin to the Minutemen who did everything in their power to fight off the British forces in 18th Century America.

Conclusion: Although I am a pacifist and would opt for non-violent resistance against the criminal presence of Israel in Palestine, I must acknowledge in all good conscience that Hamas is legally and morally justified in defending the cause to free Palestine – both in Palestine and in Israel.

“Israel is friend and ally to the United States”

Israel is the United States’ daddy.

Fact: Israel perpetrates crimes against humanity with impunity and the United States not only condones these actions, it funds them.

• Our government has been infiltrated by Zionist judges, legislators, and executive administrators from both the Republican and Democratic parties. This is not to mention AIPAC and other Zionist-controlled lobbies which manipulate finances and legislation at federal, state, and local levels.

• Our financial system (banks, Wall Street, the Federal Reserve) is controlled by Zionists.

• Our entertainment industry (Hollywood, Broadway, Nashville, NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, etc.) is predominantly owned and operated by Zionists.

• Mainstream media (all major news networks, television and radio stations, newspapers) are owned and operated by Zionists.

Conclusion: The result of all this is twofold: Zionists greatly influence and manipulate the U.S. government into enabling and funding Israel’s war crimes against Palestine and humanity.

Zionists convince the masses that Israel is the “good guy” and Muslims, Arabs, and especially Palestinians are the “bad guys”.

No true friend or ally would manipulate a friend into being complicit in a myriad of war crimes! Zionist Israel is, in fact, a devious enemy of the United States.

Epilogue

Anyone who clings to these and other Zionist myths must fall into one of three categories:

• Liar: Zionist supporter (Jewish, Christian, or other) who knows the facts and is yet involved in the scheme to mislead the public

• Ignorant: common citizen who has fallen prey to Zionist propaganda and has made little or no effort to validate the information

• Fool: one who has learned the truth, but ignores it in a vain display of “loyalty” to a political or religious position.

Raji (Roger) Abuzalaf is a Christian Palestinian (Haifa) refugee raised in Houston, now a long-term Honolulu resident and a U.S. citizen. He is a guitarist, singer, composer, and poet. Raji participates in local progressive/activist causes, at present co-producing pro-Palestine filmfare for Oahu’s main cable provider’s public-access TV network.

August 7, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

If a Genocide Falls in the Forest

By David Swanson | War is a Crime | August 7, 2014

There’s a wide and mysterious chasm between the stated intentions of the Israeli government as depicted by the U.S. media and what the Israeli government has been doing in Gaza, even as recounted in the U.S. media.

With the morgues full, Gazans are packing freezers with their dead children. Meanwhile, the worst images to be found in Israel depict fear, not death and suffering. Why the contrast? If the Israeli intent is defensive, why are 97% of the deaths Gazan, not Israeli? If the targets are fighters, why are whole families being slaughtered and their houses leveled? Why are schools and hospitals and children playing on the beach targeted? Why target water and electricity if the goal is not to attack an entire population?

The mystery melts away if you look at the stated intentions of the Israeli government as not depicted by the U.S. media but readily available in Israeli media and online.

On August 1st, the Deputy Speaker of Israel’s Parliament posted on his FaceBook page a plan for the complete destruction of the people of Gaza using concentration camps.  He had laid out a somewhat similar plan in a July 15th column.

Another member of the Israeli Parliament, Ayelet Shaked, called for genocide in Gaza at the start of the current war, writing: “Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”

Taking a slightly different approach, Middle East scholar Dr. Mordechai Kedar of Bar-Ilan University has been widely quoted in Israeli media saying, “The only thing that can deter [Gazans] is the knowledge that their sister or their mother will be raped.”

The Times of Israel published a column on August 1st, and later unpublished it, with the headline “When Genocide Is Permissible.” The answer turned out to be: now.

On August 5th, Giora Eiland, former head of Israel’s National Security Council, published a column with the headline “In Gaza, There Is No Such Thing as ‘Innocent Civilians’.”  Eiland wrote: “We should have declared war against the state of Gaza (rather than against the Hamas organization). . . . [T]he right thing to do is to shut down the crossings, prevent the entry of any goods, including food, and definitely prevent the supply of gas and electricity.”

It’s all part of putting Gaza “on a diet,” in the grotesque wording of an advisor to a former Israeli Prime Minister.

If it were common among members of the Iranian or Russian government to speak in favor of genocide, you’d better believe the U.S. media would notice. Why does this phenomenon go unremarked in the case of Israel? Noticing it is bound to get you called an anti-Semite, but that’s hardly a concern worthy of notice while children are being killed by the hundreds.

Another explanation is U.S. complicity. The weapons Israel is using are given to it, free-of-charge, by the U.S. government, which also leads efforts to provide Israel immunity for its crimes.  Check out this revealing map of which nations recognize the nation of Palestine.

A third explanation is that looking too closely at what Israel’s doing could lead to someone looking closely at what the U.S. has done and is doing. Roughly 97% of the deaths in the 2003-2011 war on Iraq were Iraqi.  Things U.S. soldiers and military leaders said about Iraqis were shameful and genocidal.

War is the biggest U.S. investment, and contemporary war is almost always a one-sided slaughter of civilians.  If seeing the horror of it in Israeli actions allow us to begin seeing the same in U.S. actions, an important step will have been taken toward war’s elimination.

Yes, how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn’t see?
The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

August 7, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Rachel Maddow, Rand Paul and Israel

By Michael Arria | CounterPunch | August 6, 2014

The beef between Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has been going on for four years now. It was famously kicked off during Paul’s Senate campaign when Maddow began grilling him about his position on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Paul’s strict devotion to the free-market had led him to the conclusion that, maybe, some of its business regulations were unjust. “Libertarians are like that,” wrote, the late, Alexander Cockburn, at the time. “On some big and important things they’re admirable and staunch. Many of them, on some big and important things, are rancid.” Later, in the same piece, Cockburn explained the allure of Maddow’s takedown, “It’s the easiest thing in the world for a grandstanding liberal to push a libertarian into a corner…Lib­erals love grandstanding about what are, in practice, dis­tractions. You think the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is going to come up for review in the US Senate?

MSNBC remains intrigued by the story, as evidenced by Paul’s recent appearance on The Cycle, where co-host Ari Melber recently asked if his views on the Act had evolved. “What I would say to be fair to myself, because I like to be fair to myself, is that I’ve always been in favor of the Civil Rights Act,” claimed Paul. “People need to get over themselves writing all this stuff that I’ve changed my mind on the Civil Rights Act. Have I ever had a philosophical discussion about all aspects of it? Yeah, and I learned my lesson: To come on MSNBC and have a philosophical discussion, the liberals will come out of the woodwork and go crazy and say you’re against the Civil Rights Act, and you’re some terrible racist. And I take great objection to that, because, in Congress, I think there is nobody else trying harder to get people back their voting rights, to get people back and make the criminal justice system fair. So I take great offense to people who want to portray me as something that I’m not.”

Paul makes some valid points here, although there’s a wider issue: do the policies he advocates address the systemic issues of economic racism? This question is, probably, worth debating on a show like Maddow’s, but she fired back in a different vein.

“You cannot base a presidential campaign on something that is not true about [himself] or try to cover up something that you have said now that you don’t like the way that sounds,” Maddow explained in a rant about Paul’s MSNBC comments. “Nobody expects you to be perfect, but nobody expects you to be a petulant person who lies and is constantly threatening imagined adversaries about it,” she concluded.

This is pretty blatant for Maddow criticism, as she generally likes to attack GOP politicians in a much more jovial manner. It’s clear that she has a real problem with Paul and, perhaps, believes he supports racist policies. This is actually true, but Maddow doesn’t have to travel back fifty years to find them. She need look no further than a recent National Review op-ed in which Paul criticized the Obama administration for not being sufficiently pro-Israel. “I think it is clear by now: Israel has shown remarkable restraint. It possesses a military with clear superiority over that of its Palestinian neighbors, yet it does not respond to threat after threat, provocation after provocation, with the type of force that would decisively end their conflict.”

This “remarkable restraint” has shocked the world, for the past few weeks, as over 1,900 Palestinians have been killed; most of them civilians and many of them children. The backdrop of this brutal attack is an illegal occupation and a system of segregation that many, throughout the world, view as apartheid. Maddow’s producer, Steve Benen, criticized Paul, via MSNBC blog post, for flip-flopping on the subject of Israel. In 2011, Paul actually made a number of comments suggesting that the US cut aid to Israel. “The senator could take this opportunity to explain how and why his position has changed,” wrote Benen. “Maybe he could say he’s learned more about foreign policy over the last few years and this knowledge has caused him to reevaluate some of his previous positions.”

To Benen’s mind, Paul’s flip-flop is the crucial issue, not his indefensible position. This, naturally, begs the question: does Rachel Maddow refuse to criticize Paul’s stance on Israel because she agrees with him?

~

Michael Arria is the author of the new CounterPunch book, Medium Blue: The Politics of MSNBC.

August 6, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

10-year-old child shot in chest with live ammunition

International Solidarity Movement | August 6, 2014

Hebron, Occupied Palestine – In al-Khalil (Hebron) on Sunday August 3rd, a 10-year-old Palestinian boy was walking to his home near the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba when the Israeli military shot him in the chest with live ammunition.

The following day, ISM volunteers went to visit the young boy in al-Mezan hospital. The young boy was in critical condition, and although doctors were able to save his life, the bullet remains in his left lung, as it is too dangerous to remove it.

His father told the ISM volunteers that a relative of the boy witnessed the shooting and that it had been a man in a soldiers’ uniform that shot him, without any visible motive. His father also pointed out that even if there had been a motive, such as if the boy would have been throwing stones, nothing could have justified this shot, which was clearly aimed at the heart of this 10-year-old child.

A funeral for a soldier that died in Gaza was held in the Tel Rumeida area of al-Khalil between 1 AM and 3 AM last Sunday evening. The area was under heavy military presence, shop owners were forced to close down their shops early and Palestinians living in the area received orders stay in their homes and turn the lights off. Doctors at al-Mezan hospital have reported that in recent weeks there has been an increase in the number of bullet wounds resulting from live ammunition. Many of these wounds have been in the chest and abdomen, seemingly aimed to kill.

August 6, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Will there be accountability for Brits fighting in Israel?

By Shazia Arshad | MEMO | August 6, 2014

The Israeli army is currently waging a cold blooded campaign against the Gaza Strip, the third of its kind in less than six years. As thousands of Palestinians are killed and injured by Israeli forces, attention is slowly but surely turning towards those who are committing some of the most cruel and gruesome acts of war.

After Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009) there were attempts to use universal jurisdiction to bring about the arrest of senior Israeli officials visiting the UK who were accused of war crimes. Although the laws on universal jurisdiction were changed by the current British government, inevitably the spotlight remains on the illegality of the IDFs actions during the course of war.

During this war, however, the spotlight has shone upon a slightly different element, those British nationals who are serving in the IDF. In recent months there has been much scrutiny of British nationals who have left the UK for Syria. A letter to the Home Secretary and MP for Hayes and Harlington, John McDonnell, highlighted that 20 British nationals have had their citizenship withdrawn as a result of their activities in Syria. Media reports have suggested that hundreds of British nationals were going to Syria to take part in activities against Assad as the civil war in Syria continues to rage on some three years later. As these reports filtered out, the British government voiced concerns that upon their return these British nationals would be radicalised and become involved in extremism. This is not the first time that government officials have linked foreign affairs to extremism in the UK, but almost exclusively the conversations about extremism in the UK have consistently focused on the Muslim community.

Yet what these conversations have missed is another potential force for radicalisation. This has been missed because this radicalisation will not be of Muslims by Muslims nor at the hand of Muslims; in short it is because that spell happens in Israel.

The IDF do not actively recruit foreign nationals in the UK, yet despite this figures from Channel 4 News suggest that at least 100 Brits are currently active in the Israeli army. The Israeli army do not provide figures for the number of foreign recruits they currently have and whilst British MPs have quizzed the government on this, ministers have been unable to report back on the exact numbers. Indeed, when Lord Ahmed of Rotherham asked the then minister about this in 2009, the minister reported that this information would only be available from the Israeli government.

However, back in 2010 the Independent newspaper reported that a new organisation, Aish Malach, had been established to help foreign nationals enlist in the army. Most can join through a programme known as Mahal, which allows a person who is Jewish or of Jewish ancestry to join the army; they need not be a citizen of Israel in order to do so.

With or without structured recruitment programmes young British Jewish recruits are keen to sign up to the IDF. When the Guardian covered this in 2006, they spoke to a British recruit who said that he was joining, along with other recruits, to show his love and support for Israel. And it seems according to one report in the New Statesman that this indoctrination into support for the IDF starts early, with 16 and 17 year-olds joining the Marva programme, which echoes the training of the IDF soldiers in order to encourage the young participants to empathise with the army. These young British recruits are encouraged to join by youth groups such as the RSY Netzer and the Federation of Zionist Youth. Many of these participants did go on to join the IDF.

Whilst many of these recruits do go on to take Israeli citizenship with many becoming dual nationals, this is not the case for all recruits. Some recruits choose not to take on citizenship and remain British nationals only. Whether or not they have citizenship, these foreign recruits take on a full role in the army and serve in the same way as any other recruit in the IDF. And this inevitably means that they will take part in those same actions which the British public have watched unfold in Gaza over recent weeks resulting in the death of nearly 2,000 Palestinians.

The current conflict in Gaza has undoubtedly seen a breach of international law and it would be no stretch of the imagination to assume that war crimes had not been committed. As Palestinian officials met with International Criminal Court prosecutors, a group of senior British lawyers wrote to the ICC urging them to investigate noting that the ICC had a duty to do so given the UN’s recognition of Palestine. And if Israel is found guilty of war crimes at the ICC, then it follows that Israeli officials would have to be held to account over their actions. And under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Britain would have a duty to ensure that it plays its role in ensuring that justice is served.

With British nationals active in the IDF, there is no doubt that some of these recruits will have taken part in the current campaign in Gaza. As Foreign Office Minister, Lord Malloch Brown, noted after Operation Cast Lead: “anybody who has broken the fourth protocol of the Geneva Convention deserves to meet justice in some court or another.” The minister also said that it would not be right to draw a distinction between “British nationals and others”. Should British nationals return to the UK having partaken in such crimes it should be inevitable that justice would follow. In reality, it is unlikely that any such action would be taken by British courts against British IDF soldiers.

Whilst there have been no moves to prevent Brits enlisting in the IDF, there is a law which states it is an offence for a British national to enlist in a foreign army and should they do so it would be an offence “punishable by fine and imprisonment.” The law however has been barely used and became almost redundant when British nationals left the UK to join the struggles during the Spanish civil war. With no laws to effectively prevent Brits joining the IDF, British nationals remain vulnerable to arrest – if they choose to leave the country and take up arms with the Israeli army, who have been killing and wounding civilians in Gaza they are culpable of committing crimes against a besieged civilian population, almost certainly illegal under international law.

Britain has always been troubled by its role in the Middle East and the effect of its foreign policy on communities at home in the UK. When the current government launched its report into British nationals fighting in Syria, the focus was on how to prevent radicalisation of the Muslim communities in the UK. Those Brits arrested after returning from Syria have been accused of partaking in terrorist activity, but those Brits in the IDF are no less guilty of that. The only difference being that the the Israeli army’s actions are state sanctioned and as of yet have not been condemned by the British government.

When British Foreign Office Minister Baroness Warsi resigned she noted that the UK needs to end its complicity by looking to bring about an arms embargo. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg went on to call for a suspension of arms export licenses within hours of Warsi’s resignation, but if the UK is to fully end its complicity in Israeli war crimes, it needs to look closely at the actions of its citizens who are taking part in the IDFs assault of the Palestinian people.

August 6, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Gaza’s children will not forget

By Roqayah Chamseddine | Al-Akhbar | August 6, 2014

374259_Israeli-war-on-GazaAs Israel withdraws its ground forces from Gaza “to defensive positions” outside the Gaza Strip there are already obscene calls for Israel to re-engage so that Israel may “finish the job” and “go all the way” by demilitarizing Gaza, purging the 360 sq. km strip of its native Arab inhabitants and reoccupying it. Nearly 1,900 Palestinians have been killed and at least 500,000, who are already refugees, have been internally displaced once more as a result of 29 days of implacable Israeli attacks. Parts of Gaza have been emptied, with entire neighborhoods eradicated as though they had never existed. From space the Gaza Strip was captured veiled in black, with Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment glowing bright — the widespread pockets of shelling luminous amongst the darkness, like blazing sulfur. If this is what was witnessed from space imagine what horrors the people of Gaza will see on earth as the dust settles.

Citizens of Gaza’s southern town of Khuza’a who fled unwavering bombing campaigns describe harrowing scenes of bodies lining the streets, children being kept in ice cream freezers as morgues could no longer accommodate the dead, and tell of being deliberately targeted by Israel, some narrowly escaping with their lives.

In one incident, reported by 15-year-old Akram al-Najjar to Human Rights Watch, after Israeli soldiers found more than 100 people huddled together in one house, they were all forced out: “The first one to walk out of the house was Shahid al-Najjar. He had his hands up, but the soldiers shot him. He was shot in the jaw and badly injured, but he survived. Two of the people in the house spoke Hebrew and asked the soldiers why they shot him, and the soldiers said that the rest of the men had to take our clothes off before we walked out.”

In another eye-witness account in Khuza’a, the Israeli military had trapped at least 32 people in a home and then prevented the Red Cross from evacuating them before then shelling the area. After they moved to a neighbor’s house they sought refuge in the basement where they found families already inside. “By that point we were 120 people, 10 men and the rest women and children,” Kamel al-Najjar told Human Rights Watch. After dawn, without warning, Israel struck the house, killing three people and wounding 15 others.

The toll this war had on Gaza’s children has been “catastrophic” according to the United Nations. At least 429 children have been killed in this latest Israeli onslaught, and those who have not been buried have had their innocence entombed, another casualty in this war against all things daring to live and resist in Gaza. “I watched the missile falling on my home. My home burned. It burned all my toys, clothes and my room. I think I will not survive,” a nine-year-old girl from Rafah told a UNRWA counselor.

Gaza’s children were robbed of hundreds of blissful mornings, from witnessing the sun rising to kiss the earth as they sit restless, listening to the reassuring pulse of their parents’ voices, tasting the sugar of happiness from their smiles. Some will no longer feel their mother’s soothing arms rock them still into the night, nor see the inspiring glimmer of hope, like constellations, dancing in their father’s eyes, nor will they hear stories told by their grandparents of golden sunsets in Palestine bleeding into mornings — and when the homes are rebuilt there will be corners of emptiness inside that had once been filled to the brim with the laughter of a sibling or cousin, as they sat amongst flat bread and plates of labneh, za’atar and olive oil.

Israel has forced the children of Gaza to lay flowers atop headstones, and watch helplessly as coffins that are filled with not only their most beloved family members, teachers, neighbors, and friends but also their most treasured memories, lullabies, lessons learned and those that will never come, descend into the belly of the earth. Their lips will memorize and form prayers for the dead and the stars that defied the siege, that flickered freely high above them, will be snatched from their skies. In so many interviews after countless attacks we hear Palestinians, both young and old, say: “Israel has stolen everything beautiful in our lives,” and Israel’s barbarity continues to reaffirm this sentiment.

Yet despite the blood soaking the dirt beneath the feet of mourners, despite this cataclysmic butchery and theft, Palestinians continue to resist. Israel has attempted with all of its militaristic might to remove not only the Palestinian will to resist but to extract Gaza, the land and the identity, from the Palestinian character as a whole, by way of the siege — but it is a part of Palestine as much as one’s heart is a part of the body.

Gaza is Palestine. So long as a single voice remains in Gaza calling for resistance, for an end to the siege and the greater occupation, come what may, Israel will answer for the destruction of villages, the arbitrary detention of children, the normalization of indefinite detention without charge or trial for political prisoners, the detainment of asylum seekers, the racism that has become part and parcel of the occupation. Israel will answer for its culture of impunity.

The children of Gaza will not forget the people and the land that Israel has snatched from them and so long as a single flag stands amongst the rubble, so long as a single voice cries for justice, despite the sounds of drones buzzing up above, the people of Palestine shall endure.

Roqayah Chamseddine is a Sydney based Lebanese-American journalist and commentator. She tweets @roqchams and writes ‘Letters From the Underground.‘

August 6, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

More than 70 per cent of Gazans have no drinking water

MEMO | August 6, 2014

Palestinian children store waterHead of the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) Shaddad Attili said on Tuesday that the Gaza Strip is suffering a severe shortage of clean drinking water, calling the water situation “disastrous” after heavy Israeli attacks on the network of water pipes.

Speaking to Anadolu news agency, Attili said that 70 percent of the water pipelines have been damaged and that the 1.8 million Gazans are surviving on only 30 percent of the Strip’s capacity.

He went on to say that the water from some of the wells along the Strip was mixed with sewage. In addition 50 per cent of the sewage was pouring into the sea without being filtered because of the damage to the pipelines.

Gaza is one of the world’s most densely populated areas, where around 1.8 million people live in 360km2.

The PWA previously condemned Israeli plans to establish a security area 3km along the Gaza Strip. The PWA said this area, 36 percent of the Gaza strip, includes most of the resources for drinking water.

The PWA called upon the international community to intervene in order to prevent this and to allow chloride, which is used to sterilise drinking water, into the Strip. They also called for fuel to be allowed in to run water wells.

According to the statement, the Gaza Strip is in an urgent need of large tankers to distribute drinking water to urgently fulfil the needs of its residents.

During the war, the Palestinian housing and work ministry said that Israel had destroyed 25 percent of the infrastructure. Executive manager of the Palestinian Telecom Company said that 85 percent of wired and wireless telephone facilities were destroyed.

Israel killed 1,875 Palestinians, including 426 children and 255 women, and wounded 9,893; more than half of them are children and women, according to the ministry of health. 10,606 homes were destroyed, including 1,724 that were completely destroyed. It attacked 132 mosques; 42 of them were completely destroyed. Six universities and 188 schools, as well as 19 banks and exchange offices were directly attacked.

More than 315 factories, 27 public services facilities and 52 fishing boats were also destroyed.

August 6, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Embedded Reporter Says Israel Targeted Guided Missile at UNWRA School, Killing 15 Civilians

By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | August 5, 2014

An Israeli reporter for Maariv, Aviram Zino, has been embedded with an Israeli unit during the current invasion. Noam R writes in his Israeli political blog about Zino’s fawning enthusiastic response to being given the chance of a lifetime to be a reporter in the middle of the “action.” His reporting comes across as cheerleading rather than objective journalism. But in spite of himself, Zino reveals a damning fact that impeaches the Israeli’s credibility regarding its denial of deliberately targeting UN buildings housing Palestinian civilian refugees.

Zino reports that the unit commander, Nadav, ordered the firing of a $100,000 Tamuz (aka Spike) heat-seeking anti-tank missile on a UNWRA school in Beit Hanoun on July 24th:

Nadav tried to clarify what means were available to him.  A survey of the field shows clearly fire coming from an UNWRA school in the center of Gaza. The order is given and a Tammuz missile is fired at the school.  The commanding general, who arrives later for a press conference, says in response: “This is yet another example of Hamas’ cynical use of civilian structures for the purposes of terror.”

It’s a bit aggravating since the unit tried from the beginning of the Operation to do minimal damage, as best as possible, to the “uninvolved” [military jargon for “civilians”].

15 Palestinian civilians died from this missile and 150 were injured.  As Noam R points out in his blog post, this is the first eyewitness, definitive evidence that Israel deliberately ordered a lethal guided-weapon (not indiscriminate artillery fire) to be fired at a civilian building in Gaza knowing there were unarmed non-combatants inside who would be killed.

Two things to point out about this report. Clearly, Zino didn’t see firing from the school. He trusted the unit commander’s word that such fire had been confirmed. But by whom and how is not mentioned. Second, the commander speaking at the press conference only notes the attack by Israel on the school without explaining how it justified killing civilians. Zino, in the closing sentence, admits explicitly that the attack was both disproportional and knowingly attacked civilians. As Sara Lee Whitson says in the paragraph below: that “is a war crime.”

In fact, Human Rights Watch’s Sarah Leah Whitson spoke about Israel’s responsibility to Gaza’s civilian population:

…The…presence of… civilians despite a warning to flee cannot be ignored when attacks are carried out, as Israeli forces have done previously.

“Warning families to flee fighting doesn’t make them fair targets just because they’re unable to do so, and deliberately attacking them is a war crime,” Whitson said.

In other words, you may not attack a civilian target containing unarmed civilians using heavy lethal weapons, even if you believe there are armed fighters engaged in combat operations against you. The safety of civilians trumps any desire to eliminate the armed threat, if there is one. This is reinforced by the fact that the Israel never presents any proof of its claims that armed fighters are firing from such structures and didn’t do so in this particular case.

There is yet another instance of serious Israeli prevarication. Army spokesperson Lt. Col. Lerner told AP 900 Palestinian fighters had been killed during the war. Yet Israel itself only two days before had put that number at 300. When asked why it jumped so much, AP characterized his response:

Lerner said the figure of 900 militants killed was an approximation, based on reporting from individual Israeli units, but provided no further detail.

In other words, “900″ is nothing more than the old Vietcong “body count” released by the U.S. army to persuade the press it was killing gooks and winning the war. The truth turned out to be quite different, as it will be in Gaza as well.

Palestinian and UN reports place the number of dead fighters at 20% of the overall total, which is 1,900. That would mean that 380 militants were killed. My own Israeli source reports more candid Israeli claims that 500 fighters have been killed. Certainly, the final number will be somewhere between 380-500, but nowhere near Lerner’s prevaricating claim of 900.

My Operation Protective Edge debrief yesterday argued that while both sides had gotten bloody noses, Hamas, simply by remaining standing, had gotten the better of Israel. Sheera Frenkel interviewed soldiers leaving Gaza and they uniformly told her they believed both that their objectives hadn’t been clear going into Gaza, and now that the Operation had ended, they hadn’t “gotten the job done.” Meaning, don’t believe the PR-bloviating you’ll hear from Benny Gantz and Bibi Netanyahu saying that Hamas had been dealt a mortal blow, that Israel had achieved all its objectives, etc. None of that happened. … Full article

August 6, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Gaza industrial sector hit hard as 134 factories destroyed

Ma’an – 06/08/2014

GAZA CITY – At least 134 factories were destroyed during Israel’s four-week military offensive in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian industrial union said Wednesday, causing severe damage to an already fragile industrial sector.

The union of Palestinian industries said that most factories stopped operations for over 30 days, with reported losses of at least $70 million.

Over 30,000 workers were made redundant due to the closures.

“The Israeli war machine deliberately destroyed the infrastructure of the Palestinian national economy by targeting factories which posed no security threat to the occupation,” the union said.

The industrial sector had already suffered major damage during previous Israeli military offenses in Gaza in 2012 and 2008.

The ongoing Israeli blockade has also severely limited the productivity of the industrial sector since it was imposed eight years ago, forcing factories to close or fire workers to remain in operation.

“Israel shouldn’t be rewarded for this aggression, and so Israeli products should be boycotted both locally and internationally,” the union added.

Deputy PA economy minister Taysir Amro said the 29-day war had caused total damage of up to $6 billion dollars.

August 6, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

US objects Palestinian bid to International Criminal Court

MEMO | August 6, 2014

Spokesperson of the US Department of State Jen Psaki said on Tuesday that her country objects to the Palestinian Authority’s efforts to try Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Commenting at a daily press briefing in Washington on what she called “reports of a push for an ICC investigation”, she said: “Our view is that we continue to strongly oppose unilateral actions that seek to circumvent or prejudge the very outcomes that can only be negotiated.”

She continued: “We’ve been very clear that, while we’ve expressed concerns when we’ve had them, there is – the only realistic path for realising Palestinian aspirations of statehood is through direct negotiations between the parties.”

Earlier on the same day, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Malki said he is optimistic that the latest ceasefire in Gaza will hold, even as Palestinians renewed efforts to bring Israel before the ICC.

“We expect the ceasefire to expand into another 72 hours and beyond,” Al-Malki told reporters at a press conference at The Hague, where he met the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda.

“We have heard that Israel has really committed itself to withdrawing… but it really depends on Israel and the seriousness of the Israeli side,” Al-Malki said.

He also openly expressed that the Palestinian Authority is planning to bring Israel to the ICC over the massacres carried out in the Gaza Strip during the last four weeks.

August 6, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Eyeless in Gaza

Israeli deceptions revealed in story of ‘kidnapped’ soldier

By Jonathan Cook | Dissident Voice | August 4, 2014

A single incident at the weekend – the reported capture by Hamas on Friday of an Israeli soldier through a tunnel – illustrated in stark fashion the layers of deception Israel has successfully cast over its attack on Gaza.

On Sunday, as the army indicated it would start limited withdrawals, Israel claimed Hadar Goldin was dead, possibly buried in a collapsed tunnel as Israel bombarded the area in which he was seized. His family said he was being left behind.

Israeli officials or media did not view Hamas’ operation dispassionately. Goldin was not “captured” but “kidnapped” – as though he was an innocent seized by opportunistic criminals.

As occurs so often, many western journalists followed Israel’s lead. The London Times’ front page blared: “Kidnapped in Gaza”, while the Boston Globe called him the “abducted Israeli soldier”.

From western reactions, it was also clear the soldier’s capture was considered more significant news than any of the massacres of Palestinian civilians over the past weeks.

Israel’s cynical calculus – that one soldier is more valuable than large numbers of dead Palestinian civilians – was echoed in the diplomatic and editorial corridors of Washington, London and Paris.

Misleading too was the general agreement that, in attacking a group of soldiers in Rafah and seizing Goldin, Hamas had violated the first moments of a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire.

The Washington Post reported on the circumstances as a Hamas suicide bomber emerged from a tunnel to explode his vest, killing two soldiers, and Goldin was pulled into the shaft. “>On Friday morning, Israeli troops were in the southern Gaza Strip preparing to destroy a Hamas tunnel, said Israeli military officials. Suddenly, Palestinian militants emerged from a shaft.”

CBS reporter Charlie D’Agata parroted the same Israeli briefings, also inadvertently exposing the central deceit. The soldier was “suspected of being kidnapped during an operation to clear tunnels – crucially, [officials] say, this happened after the ceasefire was supposed to take place.”

So if a ceasefire was in place, what were Goldin and his comrades doing detonating tunnels, tunnels in which Israel says Hamas is hiding? Were Hamas fighters supposed to simply wait to be entombed in their bunkers during the pause in hostilities? Or was Israel the one violating the ceasefire?

And then there was the explosion of military fury as Israel realised its soldier was missing. Israeli correspondents have admitted that the notorious “Hannibal procedure” was invoked: the use of all means to stop a soldier being taken alive, including killing him. The rationale is to prevent the enemy gaining a psychological advantage in negotiations.

The unleashing of massive firepower appeared designed to ensure Goldin and his captors never made it out of their tunnel, but in the process Israel killed dozens of Palestinians.

It was another illustration of Israel’s absolute disregard for the safety of civilians. At least three-quarters of the more than 1,700 Palestinians killed so far are non-combatants, while almost all Israeli casualties have been soldiers. This has been a pattern in all Israel’s recent confrontations.

Israel’s official justifications for taking the fight into Gaza have been layered with deceit too.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued that Israel was dragged into a war of necessity. Barack Obama echoed him: Israel had a right to defend itself from a barrage of rockets fired out of Gaza. Later the pretext became Israel’s need to destroy the “terror tunnels”.

The logic is deeply flawed. Israel is occupying and besieging Gaza, conferring on its inhabitants a right under international law to fight for their freedom. How does the oppressor, the lawbreaker have a right to self-defence? If Israel objects to being scratched and bruised, it should stop choking its victim.

The degree to which Israel’s narrative of “self-defence” has come to dominate news coverage and diplomatic statements was revealed in a CNN interview. Anchor Carol Costello asked a baffled interviewee in all seriousness: “Why doesn’t Hamas just show Israel where these tunnels are?”

Equally significantly, Israel has obscured the truth that it picked this particular round of its ongoing confrontation with Hamas – and did so entirely cynically.

A BBC reporter recently confirmed with an Israeli police spokesman a rumour that had been circulating among military correspondents for weeks. The group behind the abduction in June of three Israeli teens in the West Bank – the trigger for Israel’s campaign against Hamas – was a lone cell, acting on its own.

Claiming precisely the opposite – that he had cast-iron proof Hamas was responsible – Netanyahu gave the army free rein to arrest hundreds of Hamas members and smash the organisation’s institutions in the West Bank.

The crackdown created the necessary provocation: Hamas allowed Gaza’s factions to start firing limited numbers of rockets. Analyst Nathan Thrall noted recently that Hamas had impressed the Israeli army until that point by enforcing the ceasefire agreed with Israel 18 months earlier, even though Israel violated the terms by maintaining Gaza’s siege.

Now the rockets gave Netanyahu an excuse to strike.

So what was his real reason for going into Gaza? What were these many deceptions designed to hide?

It seems Netanyahu wanted to end a strategic threat: not Hamas rockets or tunnels, but the establishment of a unity government between Hamas and its long-time rivals Fatah. Palestinian unity risked reviving pressure on him to negotiate, or face a renewed and more credible Palestinian campaign for statehood at the United Nations.

But Hamas’ unexpectedly impressive martial display against Israel – killing dozens of soldiers, firing long-range rockets into Israel throughout, closing briefly the sole international airport, launching attacks into Israeli territory, and causing a loss to the economy estimated so far at more than $4bn  – may have changed the calculus again.

For the moment, Netanyahu seems to prefer to pull back Israeli soldiers rather than be forced under international pressure to negotiate with Hamas. He knows that its key demand will be that Israel end the siege.

But in the longer term, Netanyahu may need Palestinian unity, at least on his terms, to undermine Hamas’ gains.

As Israel began its attack on Gaza, Netanyahu turned his attention to the West Bank. He warned that there could never be “any agreement in which we relinquish security control” over it for fear that, given the West Bank’s larger size, Israel might “create another 20 Gazas”.

He was ruling out any hope of Palestinian statehood. A “demilitarised” entity, heavily circumscribed and absolutely dependent on Israel and the US, seems to be all that Israel will ever put on the table.

Allowing Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah into Gaza could justify loosening the siege. But only as long as Abbas agrees to remove Hamas’ military infrastructure and export to the coastal enclave the model he has established in the West Bank – of endless accommodation to Israeli and US dictates.

Jonathan Cook, based in Nazareth, Israel is a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books).

August 5, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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